{"id":520326,"date":"2026-04-08T22:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/520326\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T22:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:09:09","slug":"freelance-designer-worked-with-a-print-shop-customer-who-always-claimed-there-was-a-mistake-in-every-proof-so-the-team-started-adding-a-mistake-on-purpose-so-he-would-approve-it-faster-twisted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/520326\/","title":{"rendered":"Freelance Designer Worked With A Print Shop Customer Who Always Claimed There Was A Mistake In Every Proof, So The Team Started Adding A Mistake On Purpose So He Would Approve It Faster \u00bb TwistedSifter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Designer<\/p>\n

Pexels\/Reddit<\/p>\n

When someone expects something to be wrong every time, it can be surprisingly hard to convince them otherwise.<\/p>\n

So, what would you do if a client refused to approve a project unless they could point out an error every single time? Would you just grow to expect it? Or would you find a creative way to fix the situation?<\/p>\n

In the following story<\/a>, a freelance designer finds himself in this situation and devises a creative plan. Here\u2019s how he handled it.<\/p>\n

This goes back to the 1990s. I was an independent designer for a few different printing businesses in the South Suburbs of Chicago.<\/p>\n

Back then, computers were fairly new, and print shops were still old school. Those inserts you found in newspapers? They were still hand-lettered back then!!!<\/p>\n

I\u2019d design brochures and flyers, laser-print proofs, scan photos (a 150 dpi HP scanner was $1200 \u2013 that\u2019s like $5K today!), and so on.<\/p>\n

After enough \u201cerrors,\u201d he came up with a plan.<\/p>\n

Anyway, one of the print shops had a customer who always found an error, demanded a new proof, and wouldn\u2019t authorize the job until he signed off on the new proof. Every.<\/p>\n

Single. Time. \u201cThis line is crooked,\u201d \u201cThis word is too dark,\u201d and so on.<\/p>\n

So we came up with a solution.<\/p>\n

They outsmarted him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d do two proofs. One was the original, accurate one. The other has an obvious intentional mistake.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d catch the \u201cmistake\u201d and ask for a new proof.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d be told to come back in an hour (it was usually a day or two). He\u2019d come back and be shown the 2nd proof. He approved it every time.<\/p>\n

Demand that there\u2019s always a mistake? Here you go!<\/p>\n

Too funny! That was an easy fix.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see what the folks over at Reddit think about what happened here.<\/p>\n

This reader does it with chili.<\/p>\n

\"Mistakes<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s someone who did that as a kid doing chores.<\/p>\n

\"Mistakes<\/p>\n

And a mason did this to the building inspector.<\/p>\n

\"Mistakes<\/p>\n

For this person, the trick was learned in the Army.<\/p>\n

\"Mistakes<\/p>\n

That was an easy workaround.<\/p>\n

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pexels\/Reddit When someone expects something to be wrong every time, it can be surprisingly hard to convince them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,27761,38586,181089,2369,28055,181090,2370,144126,621,2373,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-520326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-entity","14":"tag-graphic-designer","15":"tag-making-mistakes","16":"tag-malicious-compliance","17":"tag-newspaper","18":"tag-picky-customers","19":"tag-picture","20":"tag-printing","21":"tag-reddit","22":"tag-top","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}